NEW YORK — Trying to choose the greatest football player of all time is a nearly impossible task because there is no good way to compare across eras, different people may have different views of the value and difficulty of different positions, and there generally is room for debate anyway. At quarterback alone, you could point to Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or Joe Montana, and have solid footing in a debate — and that's before thinking about Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor, or anyone else at other positions.

The greatest video game football player of all time is another story. The answer is Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl. Case closed.

"Bo was pretty good, but Michael Vick was a bad boy, man," Marshall Faulk, himself in the conversation on the reality side, told Sporting News on Wednesday night. "He's a bad boy."

Faulk, the only player to appear on the cover of EA Sports' Madden franchise twice, was the master of ceremonies for a panel discussion about the video game that he said Vick "broke." Madden is now the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, and with the 25th anniversary of the game's debut coinciding with the Super Bowl being in New York, the discussion that Faulk led showed just how important Madden is to NFL culture.

"It ranks among the top," Vick told SN of appearing on the cover of Madden 2004 on the spectrum of his career achievements. "When the game comes on, and the console turns on, and they're showing all the guys who were on the cover previously, and my picture pops up, my kids have an opportunity to see that. There's nothing greater than that, because that's something that can't be taken away. The greatest thing about it is that nobody forgets that. Madden keeps that in everybody's vision and everybody's faces. For the people that don't know, now they know. It's a great accomplishment, and something I can say I had an opportunity to be a part of. ... To be in a museum? That will always be there."

Faulk said that it was "unfair" when someone played with Vick and the Atlanta Falcons when the quarterback was all but unstoppable. Vick, oddly enough, said that he preferred to play with Brady or Manning, and be the pocket passer he always wished he was. He would be willing to give Madden a whirl with the man who seized the reins of the Philadelphia Eagles' offense from him this season, Nick Foles.

"As long as they make his passer vision about as wide as the TV screen, yeah, I wouldn't mind playing with him," Vick said. "Nick is a guy who can throw it down the field and has a strong arm, so you've go to hang your hat on that and just go play the game."

Throughout the panel discussion, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton repeatedly groused about how his speed rating on Madden was nowhere near Vick's. Fortunately, Madden allows editing of ratings by players, so if Newton wants to make Video Newton faster, he can — and he has. Actually, Newton has been in Madden since before he was in Madden, because the game allows users to create their own players, and, well, Newton was once a kid like everyone else.

"We all mess with the settings when we first get it," Newton told SN. "We put it in the simpler form. The level of difficulty would have to be on Rookie so you can get the hang of it, and as you grow in the game, you raise the level and hope and anticipate that you're successful in beating whoever you're playing."

Dave Swanson, the engineering director for the Madden series, got a good chuckle out of "Breaking Madden." After all, it would be pretty hypocritical if he didn't endorse the idea of tinkering with the game's settings.

"You see people doing that, but I was in Madden '97," Swanson told SN. "We had a Tiburon team. It was a secret code in the game, and you could play with me as the quarterback. You could see my picture on the screen, and my ratings were all (perfect) 99s. The entire team, it was all 99s. So, that kind of shows that even us as the game developers want the experience of being the super athlete. That's kind of what ("Breaking Madden" is) doing. It might be weird or silly, but it's part of that sandbox."

Creativity is part of the package, but what sustains Madden is the quality of the game itself, particularly what Newton touched on with the ability to go from novice to expert, and never have it get old. With many games, once you've mastered it, that's all there is to it. By the time you master one year's Madden, it might be time for the next year's version to challenge you anew — and if you're faster than that, you can find appropriate opposition with ease.

"Online, that's the best feature this game has — having the ability to never play alone," Newton said. "Whether you're home for the weekend or you just want a good thrill or a good experience, you go online and it's not that far away to have fun by yourself."

Vick prefers to play with his brother, "the toughest opponent I've ever faced." Faulk squares off with his 18-year-old son. One fan asked Faulk how to deal with being beaten by your own child at Madden, and the Hall of Fame running back suggested sending them to their room, then practicing.

Faulk said that while he was proud of being the only player to appear on two Madden covers, it does not compare to winning the Super Bowl. That did not mean that Faulk did not take every opportunity to bask in the glory of his achievement. Newton just wants to be on one cover.

"I've come to grips with saying maybe it wasn't meant to be," the 24-year-old quarterback said. "And who knows? You never know. There's still a lot of years from 25 years — I'm hoping they have another 25 years. You never know what the Madden cover has in store for the fans or the players as well."